


The Chapter Titles Are Funnier

by xAglow



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Scott McCall, Background Relationships, Blasphemy, College, Derek is a nerd, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Humor, M/M, Pack, Word history porn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-03 10:32:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5287316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xAglow/pseuds/xAglow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coming home from college for the summer Stiles is perhaps a little over-excited about all the nonsense he's gotten to learn about, write papers on, and research.<br/>But maybe Beacon Hills resident werewolf grump doesn't mind Stiles' passion? Maybe he even shares it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Clew. A Clew!

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm in class, listening to a lecture on the Pardoner's Tale and we're suddenly talking about a stile. It's in the scene where the three thieves jump the farm fence... This is what came of that. 
> 
> I've gotten more ideas for this. Mostly 1000-3000 word ideas that I'll just keep adding to here.

“Catch a clue, Scott,” Stiles said throwing a ball of thread at Scott as he waltzed right into Derek’s apartment without knocking. 

None of the pack knocked anymore. Derek didn’t know where he’d gone wrong; he thinks it was in saving their lives all those times… Life sure would be a lot easier if only... Distantly, Derek noted Stiles’ aim was true, but Scott’s catch was poor, or rather, more like Scott didn’t even attempt a catch.

Scott’s adamant, “No!” roused Derek fully from his thoughts.

Picking up the ball that had bounced off Scott on the couch and onto the floor, Stiles declared, “Yes!!” in such a voice of vindictive pleasure that Derek blinked. 

“Stawp, Stiles!”

“Never!”

“Derek!” Scott pleaded, as if Derek was the Alpha, not Scott. 

“Do not involve me,” Derek replied. 

“What am I doing, you ask?” Stiles began, eyes bright and trained on his newest target.

“I really didn’t ask – ” Derek tried.

“This,” Stiles said over him, literally standing over Derek at his recliner in the living room. He held the ball of thread aloft saying, “is a clew!”

Taking a moment (it had been a few years since he was in school) Derek finally caught on to what Stiles held. He snorted.

“Does this make you Daedalus?”

The was was still with shock before Stiles cackled with glee.

“Dude, do not encourage him! I’ve had to endure hours of Skype calls dedicated to lectures on the history or words I could care less about all semester!” Scott sounded like he was in genuine pain over it all.

“If I’m Daedalus, would you be my Theseus?” Stiles spoke over Scott’s whining, directing canted hips and fluttering eyelashes at Derek.

“I don’t think anyone wants a Theseus of their own,” Derek said thoughtfully.

“No, they would not because he was a fuck face and – ” Stiles looked to be about ready to go off on a rant, one, it would seem, that Scott had already heard. 

“Nope, I am not wasting my summer on this crap. I’m outta here. You two can talk your crappy soft science, nonsenses, metaphors!”

“You do listen! It is a metaphor!” Stiles laughed at Scott’s retreating form, and holding the ball of thread aloft again. 

Left alone, Derek and Stiles ended up spending a lovely evening discussing Theseus. Later, after having exhausted the topic and now hungry, they ordered take out for dinner and spent long hours in the night and early morning talking about Hippolytus: Good Guy Monkishness Or Asshat.


	2. The Cursed Snatch

“Oh my fucking God!” Stiles’ exclamation jolted Derek into an defensive crouch from his place by the kitchen stove.

“What?” Derek said. He couldn’t smell a threat, but horror rippled off Stiles from his place at the kitchen island.

Stiles’ face had been downcast, glued to the school work in front of him, but he looked up to exclaim, “They gave Mary a gynecological exam on stage in this play!”

“Stiles…” Derek said in exasperation, turning back to the curry chicken he had been cooking.

“No, really!” 

“I don’t want to know,” Derek said futilely. It had been a long day training the kids, rusty from being away at school as they were. Now was not the time for getting into with Stiles on anything academic. 

“So, like, there was this group that would perform the story of the worlds creation – a la bible style – all day on the summer solstice. Longest day of the year and all so they could start really early and go really late. Anyway, one of the scenes had these two midwives giving Mary a fucking gyno exam to prove she was still a – Oh. My. God!”

Hating himself for his curiosity, Derek turned to see Stiles was near face planted into the book on in front of him, eyes moving fast, obviously skimming what the pages said in his haste to get it all.

“Mary had a fucking cursed cunt! This is why I’m gay…” 

“Use your words, Stiles, I know you know how to,” Derek said with the patience of a saint. 

“So the midwives went down on Mary,”

“Stiles!” Derek wasn’t particularly religious or spiritual, but this conversation was starting to sound like Stiles was going to have lightning strike him down. With Derek’s luck, it’d just miss and hit him instead.

“Shhhh! So they go down on Mary - during the play I mean - and examine her to see if the hymen has broken. Only, once they’ve found out that she is still with hymen, one of the midwives gets her hand all mummified!” This last he said as he raised his right arm over the rim of the kitchen island. He'd bent it at the elbow, close to his body, and his hand was likewise curled. All giving a pathetic little shake-wave at Derek for emphasis. Finally looking up from his text, Stiles gave Derek a wide-eyed look of terror, “Cursed. Snatch, dude…” he said in a whisper. 

“Cursed to the nonbelievers.” Derek hated himself a little more for sounding so reassuring. He couldn’t help it; Stiles really did look freaked out.

Later (much later, see as it wasn’t until they were half way through eating the prepared dinner), Derek realized something. He looked up at his dinner companion across him and said, “What? You’re gay?”

Stiles choked a little on the too large bite he’d taken. Pushing Stiles' water towards him, Derek waiting for the little coughing fit to cease. 

“Well, more bi than gay, but more gay than bi... like gay bi leanings, bi-gay rather than bi-straight? The sentiment holds I guess… I’m more of a boob man than... stuff” Stiles explained as if that somehow made sense with cursed lady parts.

There was a palpable awkwardness to the silence that followed. Derek didn’t – couldn’t focus on the tragedy of his life that had revelations of sexual origination as more awkward that biblical discussions of the Virgin Mary’s cured vagina. Down that path lay madness and ruin. 

“That’s not a problem, is it?” There was a strange quality to they way Stiles asked it.

Quick to reassure, Derek blurted out, “I’m gay-gay.” as if that would reassure the younger man. 

Stiles’ snorted laugh sounded surprised. “Gay-gay?”

Derek closed his eyes and tried to will away the heat he felt pooling in his cheeks, “I just meant…” Derek growled at the state of his own inarticulate, leaden tongue. 

“I know what you meant, big guy.” Stiles chuckled, taking pity on the werewolf. “We need to hug this out or something?” Stiles continued, making to stand from his chair and round the table to Derek. “I mean, a gay to gay bro hug out?”

It was good that Stiles had made to stand. On his feet as he was, he was better able to duck the fork Derek threw at him.

Pulling back up to his full height, Stiles looked back to Derek. “Did you just try to _fork_ me?” The mischievous glint in the younger man's eyes tempted Derek to return the clumsy flirting. And it was flirting. Stiles scent was clear on that fact. The intention weight the words and the room with the scent. 

“If I were _forking_ you, it’d be from behind.” Derek allowed a little bit of a growl to deep his works. "Better chances from attacking the rear." He allowed this last comment, an out if Stiles wanted. They could both play it off as innocent Werewolf strategizing. 

Stiles nearly brained himself when his missed his seat while trying to sit back down. His scent and blush were strong enough to tell Derek that no boundaries had been pushed. If anything, boundaries might have been moved to allow for something more...


	3. You Villain!

“You villain!” Stiles exclaimed in an overly dramatized voice, hand over his heart and everything. 

Derek had just taken the last Girl Guide cookie from the living room coffee table. Derek didn’t feel too bad for thieving the last when a) there were other Pack Movie Night (all capitals) snakes overflowing the surface of the table they were surrounding and b) he’d bought them in the first place.

With as much as a smiling as Derek would allow, he said, “I’m actually rather rich.”

There was silence following this pronouncement. Kira even hit pause on the movie.

“Um, dude... Derek. What does that have to do with anything?” Scott ventured carefully, uncomfortable when the topic of money arose. 

“I can’t be a villain,” Derek said as if that explained everything. 

Kira, Scott, Allison, Isaac, Lydia and Stiles all looked at him like he’d grown an extra head.

“I was never poor, never a slave, and I’m not a criminal – accused, yes, but not convicted.” Derek pressed before Stiles could cut in on this last point.

“What does that have to do with – ” Kira started only for Scott to cut her off with a cry.

“No! Not you too! I refuse! You hear me!? No!” Derek didn’t think Scott meant the Alpha voice to come out, but it had nonetheless. 

The whole group was affected and silenced. The room was awkwardly still until Stiles broke it.

“Can someone fill the rest of us in?” He sounded inordinately put out by being left out of the loop, looking to Derek and Scott peevishly. 

“It was another one of Stiles’ damn word history bullshit things, wasn’t it?” Scott growled at Derek. 

“Villain used to refer to the serfs, or slaves, living and working the lands they didn’t own. It was a social perception that held them up as less than, lower than, and worse than, until they were eventually thought of as criminals. The words associated connotations stuck, exaggerated when put out in the theatre and – ”

“NO!” Scott growled, having had enough word history lessons he’d never asked for.

Stiles chuckled but choked off his laugh when Scott cut his eyes to him. They gleamed red. 

“This is your fault!”

“I did not intentional instigate this one. Derek took this one on all by himself,” Stiles said, smiling at his best friend and Alpha.

“In this instance I think you could say that _Stiles_ is a villain, Scott.” Derek put forward.

“What?!” was Stiles’ squawked reply.

“His dad is a civil servant, and I think that’s close to get to the original terms of the word. As for the more modern colloquialism of negative intention and criminality, well... He, unlike myself, does have a criminal record.” Derek was near smug with this last pronouncement. 

“Nope. No. Just… No.” was the only thing Scott could seem to get out.

“I think you broke him,” Lydia said with genuine interest.

At that, Scott stood, took Kira’s hand, and walked out of Derek’s apartment. Interestingly, it looked like he now had a way to get Scott to leave him alone.

“Way to ruin movie night,” Isaac said, standing too from his place on the couch and offering a hand to Allison, who’d been seated on the floor.

“He didn’t ruin it,” Allison said in all kindness.

“He sort of did,” Lydia said, standing and leaving with the werewolf and hunter. 

Alone, Stiles stood, awkward and obvious in his reticence to leave.

“Villain started being used in the theatre dramas – “ Derek began and Stiles sat back down, eye alight at the prospect of learning the history of a new word. 

It was almost 4 in the morning when they finished up talking about villain and other words like weird. That one alone, the transition from noun to adjective, took nearly 2 hours to exhaust. Each of them building off the passion of the other over such an inane bit of knowledge, of history, but it was them, or what they'd become over the summer. It was more than they'd ever had before, not just with each other, but in other relationships. 

“How did I not know you were a giant nerd?” Stiles said, a little in awe. This amazement was not new. this comment or a sentiment like it usually accompanied one of their long talks.

“I have varied interests.” Derek supplied simply. 

“That’s not varied; that’s focused and passionate!” A light seemed to go off for Stiles because he was suddenly sitting forward on the couch, leaning into Derek’s space, “You were in college? You were probably majoring in History, or English or – ”

“Humanities,” Derek confessed.

“Oh my God! You giant, indecisive, dork!” Stiles laughed.

“Takes one to know one.”

And suddenly Derek was being kissed. It was clumsy, and his teeth rang a little from the initial clash, but it smoothed out, calmed by Derek’s guiding hand on the back of Stiles’ neck. 

After a time Stiles pulled back to say, “So this is a thing.”

“hm?”

“Where I’m totally easy for dorks, nerds, brains...”

Derek was only able to get out a breathless, “Fortunate,” before he found himself back at Stiles’ lips, nipping and sucking and delving in with his tongue.


	4. I didn’t mean to say frolic…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did some overall edits, added some bits to earlier chapters to make things flow a bit better. I'm also going to be continuing this with more 1000-3000 word chapters. Drabble style, but larger.

It was the middle of summer vacation, and the pack was home from their respective post-secondary school across the country. Spread out as they were now, these short times together were precious, even to Derek (though he didn't admit it to them). 

The sun was hot, even for mid-afternoon, in mid-summer. The heat had driven most of the group to descend upon the local pool to cool off. Stiles had opted to stay with Derek in his air-conditioned apartment and read ahead for his fall classes. And it was there in the living room, Stiles on the couch and Derek in his reading chair, that a good stretch of time was spent quietly, yet comfortable, in each other’s company. As sparse as time was together as a pack now, it was even more so for these two new lovers. 

It was some time spent in this comfortable silence before Stiles interrupted with, “You are totally Hades.”

Looking over, Derek saw a copy of Greek plays, hymes, and the Theogony held in front of Stiles’ face, pulled down just enough for Stiles to peer at him over the top.

“Thanks?”

Undeterred, and used to Derek’s monosyllabic ways, Stiles continued, “Like, with the brooding and general melancholy, and the isolation…” Stiles then nodded to himself as if only now affirming this conclusion by having said it aloud. “I mean, you are a bit untouchable, and this is coming from your boy toy here.” Stiles drew a sweeping arch with one arm to encompass himself dramatically.

Before Stiles could tally off his next ‘Hades-like’ character trait, Derek cut in with, “And I’m surrounded by death.”

“Dark, dude.”

“Sorry,” Derek said. “I though you'd tuned me out, what with how you don’t generally need me in these conversations you sometimes have with yourself –”

“Oh my God I’m Persephone!” Stiles interrupted.

Derek sighed and questioned his reasoning behind getting involved with the man sitting opposite him. Like, genuinely thought about it...

“I’m totally Persephone," Stiles continues, oblivious to the direction of Derek's thoughts. " - like, you totally stole me from the light and beauty of frolicking with the other nymphs in the real world and slammed me into the wall that is your dark despair of a blood soaked reality!” Stiles had affected a wide-eyed look of horror for effect. 

Derek was silent, waiting for Stiles' ears to catch up with his mouth. 

“Wait… I didn’t mean frolic! Scratch that! I meant hang out. Manly hanging… as a nymph… this metaphor has gotten away from me,” This last said under Stiles' breath, more to himself more than Derek.

“All nymphs are female,” Derek pointed out helpfully. 

“Fucking shut up, I’m having a crisis of identity or gender or something... maybe, I don’t know! Damn you and your ways, Hades!” lifting his right hand into the air, Stiles shook it at the heavens. 

With a long-suffering sigh Derek offered, “You wouldn’t be Persephone.” trying to calm the hyperactive young man on the couch. 

The leather under Stiles squeaked as he shifted to sit up, “You mean I don’t make you overcome with the need for this milkshake that brings all the boys to the yard? You wouldn't be compelled to steal me away?”

“You’d be Hermes,” Derek said, manfully ignoring Stiles’ dated reference. 

Stiles blustered, “how do you figure?”

“You’re a _stile_.”

“About time you recognize I’ve got style,” Stiles said with some pomp, popping a nonexistent shirt collar.

“No, you are a _stile_. S. T. I. L. E.”

Stiles looked blank for a moment before taking out his phone. His Google search attempt was too slow, Derek continuing in full lecture mode.

“ _Stiles’_ were bridges between farm fences, historically speaking. They allowed passing from one place to another. Hermes was likewise a totem for marking the lines between farmlands. It became a bit of a metaphor for being in-between, a liminal figure. It was hammered home by the fact that Hermes is the only one that can travel between the underworld, the land of the living, and Olympus. He literally bridges all those places. If not for people than as a messenger.”

“Like, I’m at least your booty call, right? I still stop by and visit you in the underworld for some sugar?”

“That’s your take away?” Derek said with no small amount of pain.

“Okay, how about 'you’re a fucking nerd' as my _take away_?”

Derek sighed, “Be glad I didn’t go into Artemis’ role as a liminal figure. There are some parallels I could draw between you two if you’re still feeling soar about not being considered a chick.” This last was delivered with a lofty express. 

“You‘ve thought about this… like… more than just the time we’ve been sitting here talking about it.” Stiles broached carefully. 

There was a long silence, and Derek was proud Stiles lasted as long in it as he did before eventually continuing with, “I mean, like, you totally sat and thought about what Greek Gods we all acted like, didn’t you?” Stiles' voice was loud in the near empty apartment. The accusation ringing around the high ceilings. 

“It’s been slow around here with you all at college…” was Derek’s only defence.

“DORK!” Stiles barked before dissolving into full belly laughter.

A while later the room grew quiet again, save for a few involuntary giggles from Stiles. Thinking about how far he had already gone into this, Derek continued - in for a penny and all - “You know you bridge more than just the obvious, right?”

“There’s an obvious?”

Counting off on his figures, Derek began, “There is you’re name for starters. Then there is the fact that you can hop between everyone in the pack and find common ground or at least a harbour therein without being too out of place.” Derek was silent a moment, turning serious, “Also, you were and still are a very literal bridge between me and Scott, between me and the rest of the pack. You…” Derek stopped to take a breath and look Stiles in the eyes, “you help me connect with the pack, and… and the world. You’ve reached out and are slowly bringing me back into the world after… after…” 

“And then there’s the fact that I’m bisexual,” Stiles said with an embarrassed laugh. The feels chocking him a little too much to come up with anything funnier. 

“A but on the nose of you, but yes… there is that too.” Derek allowed, but still didn’t look away, gaze intent on the other man.

Stiles’ attempt at levity wasn’t enough to dispel the intimate air, Derek not allowing the little bubble to pop before Stile _understood_. 

Stiles let the ensuing silence hang a bit before saying, “You are a bit of a sap, you know? And you totally love me.” This last said in a faux confidence that Derek knew was meant to mask what was really being said (“do you love me?”)

“I do," it wasn’t said quietly as if shy or hesitant of the words and the feelings behind them, nor was it shouted dramatically from some mountain top. It was Derek, simple and without fuss, and steady in its genuine truth.

“I would totally visit you all the time in the underworld for some Godly hanky panky,” Stiles said, a real smile playing across his lips.

“I could hardly be expected to go without during the many months my wife is away,” Derek said in all seriousness.

“Ha! Such hidden depths of here to unknown levels of sass, Mr. Hale.” Stiles deadpanned before pausing, eyes going wide, “Wait, who’s your wife then!?”

Derek merely smiled serenely back at him.

“No, come on, Derek! Who!” Stiles pressed, “DEREK?!”

**Author's Note:**

> If you happen to notice any mistakes, please, let me know so I can change them and make this a better read!


End file.
